Kazak Women Sold as Sex Slaves

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When
teenagers Lyuda and Sveta were offered work in Turkey, the promised
salary of 400-450 US dollars per month was beyond their wildest dreams.

Unemployed and
from poor families in the south of Kazakstan, 16-year-old Lyuda and
19-year-old Sveta hoped the jobs as saleswomen in Istanbul would give
them the money for new clothes and other luxuries they couldn’t afford
at home. “Here in Taraz we didn’t even try nice food very often,” said
Lyuda. “But we’re young. We want to dress well and use make-up.”

Little
did they know of the horror that awaited them in Turkey where, like
increasing numbers of women from the southern regions of the country,
they were sold as sex slaves, forced to work up to 18 hours a day as
prostitutes. At least 15 women from Taraz and the village of Merke, on
the border with Kyrgyzstan, are known to have been sent to Turkey and
the United Arab Emirates to work in the sex industry, and many more are
suffering sexual exploitation in saunas and brothels at home.

Lyuda
and Sveta’s ordeal began when a “recruiter” drove the girls to Manas
airport in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. When they arrived in
Istanbul they were met by woman called Leonova who took them to a hotel
and disappeared with their passports – she claimed to register them to
work.

They soon
discovered they’d been sold to the owner of the hotel for 2,300
dollars, and he quickly put them to work as prostitutes. “The hotel
owner said he had bought me … and now I had to earn this money. We
didn’t know what was waiting for us there,” Lyuda told IWPR. “We did
not go there to become sex slaves. We were accompanied all the time by
a big guy with a criminal appearance to stop us from running away.”

Though
the girls saw clients for 16-18 hours each day, Leonova kept all the
money they earned. To create the impression they were having a
wonderful time abroad, she took Lyuda and Sveta to the beach where they
were photographed in happy poses and the pictures sent to their
unsuspecting families back in Kazakstan.

They
escaped only when an American client took pity on them. He paid the
hotel’s owner a large sum to let him see the girls outside the hotel
then took them to the police. With the help of the International
Organisation for Migration, which aids migrants in distress, they
returned home after spending two weeks rehabilitating at a centre for
rape victims in Ukraine.

Lyuda
and Sveta were determined their abusers should not escape punishment
and told the police about Leonova. On May 5 in Taraz, she was found
guilty and jailed for four years, the first person in the legal history
of the region to be sentenced under an article in the criminal code
prohibiting the recruitment of women for sexual exploitation.

But
their precedent-setting victory came at a high price. The girls endured
a series of crude comments and questions from Leonova’s lawyer, which
according to Asiya Kalieva, president of the NGO Bolashak and Sveta’s
attorney, left her client on the verge of hysteria.

“In
defending Leonova, he tried to accuse the victim, reminding her over
and over again of the nature of her work. He cast doubt on the fact
that she did not want to provide sexual services in Turkey, and said,
‘You should have thrown yourself out of the window if you didn’t want
to do it’.”

As a
result of such courtroom tactics, most involved in the sex industry are
afraid, and ashamed, to face their exploiters in court - particularly
in southern Kazakstan where Muslim influences are strong. Of the
numerous women from Taraz and nearby towns who’ve been sent abroad to
work as sex slaves, only four have complained to the police, and then
only after speaking with psychologists from local NGOs.

“I don’t believe that the police can really help. Any pimp can buy them off easily,” explained one victim.

Indeed,
Kazak police seem uninterested in investigating the growing problem
with any information on trafficking cases coming exclusively from local
groups that specialise in women’s rights.

Sergei
Voronov, a representative of the International Organisation for
Migration in the Jambyl province, cites two criminal cases against
recruiters that have been suspended by the Taraz police. One -
involving several dozen girls who were sent abroad and hit national
newspaper headlines – collapsed when the recruiter disappeared.

Kazaks
who monitor the sex trade point out that official indifference to the
problem is all the more alarming given that sexual exploitation is also
occurring much closer to home than in Turkey and the Middle East.

An
analysis of calls made to a hotline set up by Bolashak found one third
came from women desperate to escape sexual abuse at local saunas.

A
13-year-old girl from Taraz who said she was raped at a sauna is
typical of the young and impoverished women who work in these places.
“I argued with my parents and ran away from home, but had nowhere to
go. A friend took me to a sauna where I was treated like an important
guest for several days. But then they told me that they would not let
me go until I paid with my body for the food and rest,” she said.

A
26-year-old prostitute told IWPR that lack of official action on the
sexual abuse of women within the region is explained by the fact that
many of the saunas where the crimes occur actually belong to leading
city and regional officials. That includes the one where she works. “We
bring enormous earnings to our bosses,” the woman said.